A kindWhen we arrived at the Müllros factory, our impression of idyllic poetry was shattered. In fact, at the beginning of our hike through Schlaubetal, we expected a rattling mill with half-timbered structures and wooden grinding wheels to appear by the swift creek. Instead, we are standing in front of a brown brick monster with arched windows and a huge roof. It is more suitable for the industrial area of Berlin than this small town on the trash rose lake. This thirty-meter-high mill is much higher than the low houses and even the towers of the church. This huge neighbourhood looks a bit out of place, but it is known as the oldest verifiable mill in Schlaubetal, built in the 17th century and still in operation today.
It was once the property of the knights of the von Habendorf and Burgsdorff families. In 1839, the original small water mill was transformed into a large industrial mill. In 1873, she won the gold medal at the World Exposition in Vienna. In 1885, it was divided into rye and wheat mills and caused an international sensation with this new technology. A 300-horsepower steam engine was installed in 1878, which was a technological revolution. Cereals can now be ground into finished flour all at once. Even the person in charge of a large American factory in Minneapolis came to study this new technology-a great honor for the agricultural town of Murros.
Early technological miracles
At first we didn’t see Schlaube, she had sunk in the trash rose lake. At the southern end of its inflow into the lake, the Schlaubetalweg starts, and it will take us 25 kilometers through Schlaubetal to the source of the river. The road is easy to walk for two days, and you can get on the car at three crossroads through the valley. Like the Spree and Havel rivers, the Schlauber is one of the many channels of meltwater that flowed into the Berlin Glacier Valley from the retreating glaciers from the Banim and Fleming terminal moraines at the end of the last ice age. After the glacier disappeared, huge ice plugs remained in the carved caves. These ice plugs took centuries to melt and left thousands of sizes in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania Different lakes.
Northern Germany looks like Alaska and Siberia today, with huge, treeless moraines, icy creeks and rivers, barren tundra, sandy basins, and swampy lakes. Almost nothing is left of all these primitive landscapes. For thousands of years, forests and valleys, secluded rivers and dreamy lakes have developed from this. However, some valleys have retained their original features. Primitive forests, swamps and swamps have not been civilized or transformed by humans. Schlaubetal is such a primitive valley.
In the beginning, our rivers were always scarce, disappearing in the swamps and reeds without being noticed. We will only see Schlaube again at Ragower Mill. Here, the grinding wheel no longer rattles, and the water flows from the grinding pond uselessly over the old weir behind the wooden bridge. In the twelfth century, the brothers of the Order of St. John established a water mill south of Lake Mulero. For centuries, Schlaube formed the natural border between Johanniter Ordensamt Friedland and Neuzelle Abbey, which is also the border between Prussia and Austria. The Ragower Mill was first used as a pipe mill, then a sawmill and oil mill, and then fell into disrepair. It has been restored in the past two decades and has been restored as a mill museum together with the adjacent inn. Today, it is the only mill in Schlaubetal that retains mill technology. You must register in advance to visit the old wood grinder.
